A Beginner’s Guide to Ogham Divination

Folklorist Norman (Faerie Stones) delivers a detailed manual on how to use the druidic Ogham alphabet to gain insight into the future. She discusses the alphabet’s first appearance on stones in Ireland around the fourth and sixth centuries CE, noting that some scholars speculate that pagans developed the alphabet to communicate in a language a Roman army wouldn’t understand. Each of the 25 letters of the Ogham consists of a vertical line intersected by branch-like horizontal lines, and each came to be associated with a kind of tree. Norman explains that Ogham letters carved into twigs or stones can act like tarot cards, in that an individual seeks answers by interpreting the meaning of randomly selected letters. For example, selecting the letter associated with birch trees—which denote fertility in Highland folklore—indicates a new beginning, while aspen’s historical use as a painkiller means that selecting its corresponding letter indicates the need for resolve in the face of fear. Norman packs in a bounty of arboreal folklore but assumes that readers will be familiar with basic divination methods, meaning that seasoned practitioners will appreciate the generosity while novices might struggle to keep up. This comprehensive volume on a less-discussed method of divination will fascinate fans of the occult. (Dec.)